


Playing the Villain

by AspenCe



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Comfort, Deceit | Janus Sanders-centric, Fluff, Gen, Kinda, Sympathetic Deceit | Janus Sanders
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-12
Updated: 2020-09-12
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:48:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26418220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AspenCe/pseuds/AspenCe
Summary: Janus loves being Deceit -- but he also needs to be trusted sometimes.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 94





	Playing the Villain

Deceit was the villain. That was his Purpose, his role, his  _ entire thing _ . 

And, contrary to popular belief, he loved it. 

He loved wearing his capelet, bowler hat, and gloves; he loved the way it felt on his skin and scales, he loved the aesthetic, he loved the weight of the hat on his head and the softness of the cotton gloves on his fingers. 

He loved his scales, the way they were shiny and hard and shimmered with a rainbow if you looked at them just right. He loved his heterochromia, his snake eye, his fangs, his forked tongue. He made them himself, after all.

He loved playing the easily defeated villain, giving the Sides something to fight, something to celebrate the defeat of. He loved pretending to be a bad liar, “pretending to be pretending” - as he liked to call it - was his favorite thing to do, and  _ very  _ effective. He loved scheming up ridiculous schemes, loved it when they worked, loved it when they failed. He loved the way the others were so hilariously oblivious to the fact that he was literally just trolling them. (And not even that well, how could they  _ not  _ see the humor in the situation? He would never understand them. He  _ literally _ made it so  _ obvious _ that he was acting.)

He loved being Deceit, of coming into the Dark Sides’ commons and pulling his hat off of his fluffy, curly, blonde hair and having a laughing fit at how oblivious they were. He loved giggling at their complete gullibleness, he loved baking dinner and laughing about how the Light Sides would throw a fit if they saw him doing that, he loved watching cartoons and Disney interchangeably and snickering when he thought about how none of them would believe him.

He loved the quiet moments in his room, when he would read his psychology and philosophy books, curled up in his armchair by the fire with a snake plushie on his lap.

He loved being around Remus (the only person who knew that playing the villain was an act). He loved listening to Remus ramble on excitedly about his ideas, loved going out on crazy adventures in the Dark Imagination with him, loved the craziness and the chaos and the way they could both laugh at the Light Sides for their ignorance.

He loved himself, and he loved his life. And that was  _ not  _ a lie.

But then there was the Wedding and the Callback disaster. For the first time since he’d revealed himself to Thomas, he’d decided that he was  _ not _ going to let Patton make Thomas give up on something so incredibly important. 

It was hard. It was hard because they only knew Deceit, they only knew the villain he played, they couldn’t trust him. He’d  _ foolishly _ thought that he’d be able to get them to see the truth while still using his persona, and it had been fun at first, but then everything flipped around and Roman sentenced Thomas to go to the Wedding. 

He’d  _ lost it. _ Literally. Lost the case (okay so he technically won but he really didn’t), lost his sanity, lost his entire character and yelled at them. He’d barely managed to get himself together and sink out, furious at himself and them.

After the Wedding, Thomas  _ finally  _ realized that he really  _ didn’t  _ want to go in the least and it made basically zero positive difference in the long run.

And he’d spent the first half trying to work up the courage to slip some of  _ him  _ into his persona in front of the others, and the second half calming Thomas and Patton down from a complete meltdown. He’d seen Roman feeling bad, he’d told them his  _ name _ (great, now it was affiliated with his persona), Roman had laughed, he’d snapped at him, and then Roman looked to him to see if Thomas was lying when he said that he was his hero - and all because of his completely false reputation as a liar (okay yes lying about your personality did count as being a liar but  _ who cares _ ), Roman hadn’t believed him when he said yes.

He didn’t know if he liked being Deceit so much anymore. 

Maybe it was a good thing. 

But if he stopped being Deceit… he would lose so  _ much _ . The jokes with Remus, the stupid schemes, the complete obliviousness of his audience - it would all go away. 

_ Maybe it doesn’t have to.  _

He sat down at his desk and started formulating a villainous scheme - okay, maybe it wasn’t so villainous, but he was still going to call it that - to let him keep being Deceit while gaining the ability to have the trust of the others when he needed it. 

And it was going to be brilliant. 

-

Things were weird. 

Patton once walked into the living room and found Deceit sitting casually on the couch watching Steven Universe with a smile on his face, wearing  _ no _ hat and  _ no  _ gloves and  _ no  _ capelet, just a yellow turtleneck and black pants. It became a regular occurrence, about every week or so.

Roman went to the kitchen and found Deceit in a yellow sundress (no hat and no gloves) decorating a batch of cookies. Then, the Side had actually offered some to him! No lying or smirking or sneering or anything! (Yes, he said yes, they looked really good.) 

Logan found Deceit (no hat and no gloves) and Remus sitting on the floor with a chessboard between them - and when he stuck around to watch, he was startled to realize that the two were basically masters at the game.  _ Remus! And Deceit!  _ And  _ somehow  _ Remus  _ won _ the first round. And the second. And Deceit won the next three.

Virgil found Deceit (no hat and no gloves, wearing leggings and a skirt and a crop top) laying on the floor by the window, his legs propped straight up on the wall as he read a book called  _ Meditations on First Philosophy. _ The anxious side blinked a few times and just walked out.

Then Logan stepped out of his room one morning only to get a giant bucket of water dumped all over him, with the culprit nowhere in sight. He was  _ very _ annoyed and had to change again, and walked into the kitchen only to trip over a previously unseen clear-wrap tripwire. When he recovered, he went to the living room and sat down - only to get a pound of rainbow glitter dumped on his head. He sat down to dinner with the other sides and asked who did it… only to be disappointed when they all denied. (But Deceit was in full villain getup and his lie was very unconvincing, and he talked half in opposites and half in sarcasm for the rest of the day.) (And all of the day that already happened.)

The next day Deceit wasn’t wearing the hat and gloves and capelet and seemed to be back to his new normal. 

After a few weeks and a lot of shenanigans and foiled schemes, they all caught on to the pattern. 

Deceit without a hat or gloves or capelet was nice, funny, and actually pretty compassionate and nice to be around.

Deceit with a hat was sarcastic and a more ‘devil’s advocate’ than usual, but still empathetic and nice. 

Deceit with a hat  _ and  _ gloves was to be avoided at all costs. He was sarcastic, talked in lies but with enough truth mixed in to confuse the hell out of everyone, pulled pranks and elaborate tricks on people, and acted basically like a Disney villain.

Deceit with a hat  _ and _ gloves  _ and  _ capelet was equally as bad as Deceit with just a hat and gloves, except decidedly worse. When he had the capelet, gloves,  _ and _ hat he was much more inclined to insult, snap, and pull meaner pranks, though it was never actually  _ mean _ -mean. Just pretend Disney villain mean.

So yeah. Things were weird. But Janus was just like that, and no one really minded.

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little idea I got stuck in my head~ I mean, Janus pretending to be a villain for kicks is a fun theory, and it actually kinda fits with canon, in my opinion. ;)


End file.
